Power Outages Continue to Drop in Morristown Area

If you're reading this from your repowered home, we're happy for you. If you're reading from a Smartphone currently being charged at one of several available charging stations in the area, we feel for you.

The good news is power outage reports continue to drop in the Morristown area, as municipalities continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy (and, if you're among those now with power, let us know by clicking here).

The latest numbers, as of about 9 a.m. Thursday indicate Morristown now with about 31 percent of its residents without power (2,948 houses); Morris Township has 62 percent still in the dark (5,363); Morris Plains has the fewest out of power but with the highest percentage, at 81 percent (1,978 of 2,445 residents).

These figures, however, are cold comfort for those still waiting for theirs. Comments on the Morristown Patch Facebook page Wednesday evening showed that, for some, entering the fourth day of outages has patience wearing very thin.

"Unfortunately, we are among the 84% without power in Morris Plains and since the other half of my street has been on for 4+hours, I am pretty sure we have been completely forgotten," wrote Carol Beeck.

Liz Sofman, also still out of power Wednesday night wrote, "Chestnut Street is still completely black. The downed utility pole on Western still hasn't been taken care of and it looks like Western is blacked out too."

Adrienne Beck offered a theory on the Facebook page about those lowered numbers on JCP&L's outage map.

"It's probably saying only 33% left in morristown bc they called last night saying power was restored when it actually wasn't, so that knocked their numbers down even though things are still not fixed," she wrote.

Beck doubled down on her skepticism Thursday morning.

"How can they say only 33% still don't have power in Morristown when that list is so short and so many are still in the dark...I'm calling shenanigans," she wrote.

Utility officials, not just for the Morristown area but all over the storm-hit region have told people to prepare for seven-to-10 days without power. Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty said that was still JCP&L's stance during their most recent conference call on Wednesday.

"We're putting a lot of pressure on them," he said Wednesday. "They want to get the power back to the people."

Residents without power that have not yet done so are advised to report their outage to JCP&L at 1-888-544-4877.